I am also looking for hardcopy materials as I also provide educaitonal outreach to the general public and inner city schools to whom do not have access to the internet and cannot view these items. Most of the materials that I make comes out of my own pocket, so, I was hoping that there may be materials like posters, bookmarkers, etc., that X-prize may have....

If anyone knows of anyplace where I can get some materials (FREE), please let me know...

GeoBum*

_________________We are present in a time when we are not only able to dream about distant worlds...but to explore them...TOGETHER !!!

5. If you write to the X-Prize Foundation (particularly Peter Diamandis), they can give you a CD-ROM with some really cool short videos (Rutan unveiling, X-Prize in general) for free. Just ask for "Rutan SS1 unveiling," "2003 Armadillo Video," and "X Prize General Briefing." (They gave one to me).

6. I once wrote a short paper describing why prizes are good. (Obviously this is aimed at the general public, not really schoolkids.) I included it below; feel free to use it as you wish.

A. Competitive prizes throughout historyThe idea of competitive prizes to spur developments in various industries is an old one, harking back to the Longitude Prize of the 18th century. Most of the great prizes of the early 20th century were aviation-related. By 1929 over 50 major aeronautical prizes had been offered by government, businesses, and individuals. The most famous is the Orteig Prize, which was won by Charles Lindbergh when he crossed the Atlantic. These prizes helped create today’s aviation industry. There are also several examples from the latter half of this century, such as the Kremer Prize for human-powered flight. “This prize, originally valued at £5000, grew to £50,000 and inspired dozens of private individuals and university teams to advance the state of the art.” Another is the X-Prize, a $10 million purse for the first private suborbital flight using a 3-person reusable vehicle that flies twice in two weeks. (A winner is expected late this year or early next year.) The most recent is DARPA’s $1 million “Grand Challenge” designed to spur the development of “smart” autonomous vehicles that will eventually lead to unmanned ground combat vehicles. The DARPA prize is quite notable because it was sponsored by a U.S. government agency.

B. Advantages of a competitive prizeThere are numerous reasons why competitive prizes are excellent ways to break technological barriers, reduce costs, enable useful breakthroughs, and change paradigms.· A prize generates investment far greater than the amount of the prize.Even though no single team may spend as much money as the amount of the prize, the total amount of money spent by all the teams far exceeds the amount of the prize. A great example is the X-Prize. The total investment of just 5 of the 23 teams is over $30 million, three times the worth of the prize. More empirical proof is offered by the Orteig prize. “Where $25,000 was offered, nearly $400,000 (or 16 times the prize value) was spent to win the prize.” This is perhaps the greatest single advantage of a prize: the amount of money invested due to a prize far exceeds the amount of money that an equivalent direct government research grant or vehicle contract would provide. · The prize-sponsor will always wind up supporting the winning design.The money of a prize goes to the winning team, none to the losing teams. Thus, the investment that the prize-sponsor made will go into rewarding the winning team for their solution. No money is wasted by the sponsor on ideas that didn’t work, unlike a government contract to build a vehicle, for instance, which may result in millions spent but no vehicle flown. · Prizes inspire innovative approaches.When a prize is offered for achieving a certain goal, any approach that will fulfill the requirements of the prize can be explored. For example, different competitors for the Orteig Prize used a four-person three-engine biplane, a trimotor monoplane, and a single-engine, one-person monoplane (Lindbergh). Burt Rutan, a famous designer of innovative airplanes (and competitor for the X-Prize) has said, “A true competition… is something that will absolutely work. These approaches just define the goal. They do not try to define how to reach the goal, but merely put up the money and stand aside. Then, and only then can true competition come to life and produce results.” · Prizes change paradigms.The paradigm changes caused by prizes often spur additional private investment and tremendous public interest. “When Charles A. Lindbergh made his famous solo flight to Paris in May 1927, his flight set off a Wall Street rush to invest in aviation. His accomplishment fueled the development of commercial aviation. Between 1927 and 1929, investments in aviation stocks tripled. The number of airline passengers in the United States grew from less than 6,000 in 1926 to approximately 173,000 in 1929.” And after his flight Lindbergh took the Spirit of St. Louis around the country to admiring throngs, who were soon convinced that aviation was no longer just a sport but a business. In the same way, the X-Prize is expected to change the paradigm of space travel (well, just suborbital at first).-Matthew I., 2003

I have a 7 year background in publishing and distributing content written by youth. When time permits I may produce a pamphlet discussing the idea and history of space travel from government to private sector.